Papers written by Hodgkin, Ernest P. (Doctor, b.1908 - d.1998) - Part 2

Culinary Calories
In days of peace when food was plenteous
I seldom thought of it or made a fuss
About my meals, I was content to eat
With satisfaction soup and fish and meat
And never know what calories I ate,
Content to leave the vitamins to fate;
The fats and proteins never worried me,
Nor other things that dieticians see
In what we ordinary folk call food.
And I'd have thought it very strange and rude
Of you if coming to my house to dine
You should comment upon a dish of mine
Disparaging the vitamins you ate,
Or said the protein was inadequate.
But times have sadly changed since then alas!
And we, poor fools, have reached that sorry pass
When we must know how many calories
We eat, and what the protein content is
Of polished rice, of salted fish, or beans,
And if the vitamins there are in greens
Prevent us getting itch or burning feet.
Though always hungry we no longer eat
Mere food but carbohydrates, proteins, fats
(The things they give experimental rats),
And flavour them with vitamins and salts:
And yet despite its dietetic faults
The food's quite tasty when the kitchen tries,
Though rice is never easy to disguise.
The conversation that pervades our meals
The nature of our hungry thoughts reveals;
From eggs and bacon, beer, and bread and cheese
The gluttony progresses by degrees
Till having feasted off mixed grills we dine
At last on caviar, hor-d'oevres, and wine --
All things that probably would make us ill
If we miraculously now our fill
Of such good fare obtained (don't think that I
Would for that reason hesitate to try).
But after when I'm satisfied again
I wonder shall I really want champagne?
Or shall I when I'm hungry care two hoots
What sort of vitamins there are in fruits?
[*30.9.44*]
The Cobra
The cobra will not like you
If you tread upon his tail,
He'll quickly turn and strike you
And then he cannot fail
With both his fangs to spike you
(A blow to make the strongest quail),
Then pour his poison in he will --
And that will make you very ill.
[*Apr 44*]

Changkoling Song.
Working on the hill
Digging out the grass,
Used to push a quill.
Isn't it a farce?
Working all the day
Breaking up the earth,
Forty cents the pay
All that I am worth.
Working on the hill
Pulling lallang roots,
Working with a will,
Barefoot got no boots.
Working in the sun
Rag around my waist,
Sometimes it is fun --
What a bloody waste!
Working on the hill
Pickaxe in my hand,
Digging pits for swill,
Earth-brown now I'm tanned.
Wo^rking in the sun,
Sweating like a pig,
Working 'till I'm done,
Dig and Dig and dig.
Working like a slave,
Crops in swift rotation
That will help to save
Us from slow starvation.
Working in the rain
Heaving chunks of clay;
Won't be caught again.
Rather run away.
Working in the glare,
Teno Heiko's guest;
Had to stay and share
Prison with the rest.
Working Tuans all,
Coolies now are we,
Have been since the Fall,
WHEN SHALL WE BE FREE?
[*23.9.44*]

12/41-10-100 Ch. 46
Daily Ration Analysis.
 

To a Tin of Bully
How oft' in times of peace was thy great worth
By us despised, who scorned such simple fare
Unconscious then that ever such great dearth
Would come when we should find thy flavour rare,
Supreme, a thing to dream about at night,
And roll deliciously along the tongue;
A tin of bully is as fair a sight
As ever was by classic poet sung.
What perfect bliss 't would be if daily I
On thy most appetising meat could dine
And on thee all my hunger satisfy;
Thus would I toast thee in the rarest wine:
'All praise small unassuming tin
That givest life and makest fat the thin'.
[*25-10-44*]
Nostalgia
My garden is a pleasant place -- though hot,
I've got a sweet-potatox plot
In which to dig all day;
Potatoes are most nourishing -- and yet
I'd rather plant sweet mignonette
And poppies bright and gay.
[*28.10.44*]
A Thousand Days
A thousand weary days are gone since last
The Union Jack o'er Singapore was flown,
A thousand days have drifted slowly past
Since we could call this pleasant land our own,
Since life around us rollicked free and fast,
Not crept with leaden feet like worn-out drone:
Oh Louis come! our sentence we have served,
We've done far more than ever we deserved,
[*more time*] [*11.11.44*]

[table mostly  unreadable!]
I believe that, as paper was difficult to obtain, that the rear of the Ration Sheet
was used to type on and that the Ration Sheet does not have any value in
being transcribed. 

GUNONG PERDAH
Dark wreathed the jungle round me as I climbed
The twisting path of rock and springing earth;
The trunks of giant trees, their age untimed,
Soared upward through the undergrowth, their girth
Festooned with clinging vines all intertwined
Among the boughs that roofed the forest crypt,
So dense it did the sun's fierce radiance blind,
Save where the tinkling drops of sunlight dript
On moss, on fretted fern, and dancing leaf,
And pricked the solemn gloom with gay relief.
I clambered up and on; when round a bend
I sudden came into another world --
A world where elves did mossy carpets tend,
And goblin gardeners the fern fronds curled;
Though peaceful now and calm, the mountain storms
Had left the imprint of their tantrums there,
The trees wind-torn into fantastic forms
With gnarled and knotty fingers clawed the air;
Beneath their riven trunks dank caves were carved
--Mishapen cripples,wracked by gales, slow starved.
So still I thought I felt the wet wind sough
With hungry whisperings; about me there
The bearded lichen hung on every bough
Like wizened witches' grey and withered hair,
And monkey-cups, their hungry mouths held wide
To lure the searching ant to honeyed death unseen; 
As on I went the sphagnum deep did hide
My muted footfalls in its emerald green.
So strange a world I found upon that hill
Its fairy grottoes haunt my memory still.
(*23.12.44*)
STAR - CHARIOT
I wish that I could ride the twinkling stars,
Could swing with Jupiter the heavens across,
Or race the sun with Mercury and Mars:
One night I'd mount upon the Southern Cross
And from those star-bespangled acres peep
Beneath the bending southern curve of Earth
Upon my dear ones lying fast asleep,
Where, cradled in a home of love and mirth,
In innocence they slumber peacefully;
A word of love I'd whisper in their ears
And they perhaps with happy dreams to me
Would sweetly smile across the missing years;
And I would bear those lovely smiles away
To warm my lonely heart for many a day.
(*24.12.44*)

When you're hungry . . .
When you're hungry do you care how this bloody war
began?
When you're lonely and downhearted is it comfort that
Japan
Is being blown to blazes?
When you've got to go and dig in the burning noonday
sun,
And you're sick of planting spinach, does it help to
know the Hun
On swift extinction gazes?
When your clothes are torn and tattered, and your
mattress is in holes:
When your topi's sadly battered, and your shoes have 
got no soles;
And even hope is dying:
When for want of decent food you are wasting with
disease,
Is it any consolation then to know the Nipponese
In millions dead are lying?
When you've letters from your children many thousand
miles away,
And you lie bereft at nights and wonder what they'll
say
When once you meet again;
When fed upwith overcrowding and your patience
running low
You've antagonised a friend, is it any cheer to know
That Germans writhe in pain?
Then on Sunday when you lie in bed and savour your
repose,
And you watch the sky suffuse with red, the sunrise
as it grows,
And the world with calm is filled:
Then, in spite of all the hardships and neglect that
here we feel,
Can you cry to God 'revenge'', and go to church and
kneel
And pray that they'll be killed?
(*7.1.45*)

To My Wife --
IF THIS SHOULD BE FAREWELL
If we my dear should never share again
Those cares and joys which love so multiply,
But I a prisoner here should starve and die,
Remember then we have not loved in vain;
So sweet our wedded bliss it was a pain
To part: and though our lives have gone awry
These last three years, dear heart you must not cry.
Such golden happiness we knew we twain.
And those four souls whom we in love have brought
Into this world to share our hopes and life,
Unconscious they what bonds in us they wrought.
Please God their lives shall know no senseless strife
As now parts us, but bear such joy unsought
As has been mine since first I called you Wife.
(*March 1945*)
A DREAM
'Tis strange how even in a wayward dream
A child can tear your heart.
Last night, a stream
Chanced to be my chosen guide, to lead
My wandering footsteps over rock and mead,
From where in silent mountain tarn it sprang,
And babbling and buffeting it sang
Its infant song among the gritty rocks,
Or idled peacefully among the flocks.
Then willow-hung it wound its way across the plain
To where a city throbbed beside the main.
My journey scarce begun, black thunder clouds
O' erspread the smiling sky with Stygian shrouds,
And burst, releasing such a pent up hate
That soon a torrent foamed in turbid spate,
Quick as it came the tempest stayed its ire
And sunshine laughed in crystal drops afire
On crisp, black, alder twigs that overhung
The stream, like crystal on a necklace strung.
Strange then to find, there in that moorland glen
You and my Jonathan within my ken;
And he, poor mite, dissolved in bitter tears;
The storm, I thought, had waked his childish fears,
But no, I found that you, for some small sin,
Had need to give reproof for discipline.
Wishing to cheer the child with sympathy
I asked what caused him so great misery:
'Midst tears that to his speech were still a fetter,
He sobbed, 'Mummy can tell you so much better'.
(*Feb 1945*)

NIGHT SOUNDS
When mortal sounds lie stilled in sleep,
The last late talker gone to rest,
The distant roar of traffic deep
Has ceased at last at night's beheat;
Does night that then enfolds us round,
A soft warm blanket of the dark,
Does night cry Peace! to every sound?
Save for the wakeful watchdog's bark.
Though innocent of human strife,
Stilled all his busy work and play,
The air's compact with the vibrant life,
More filled with sound than is the day.
The chattering lizard on the wall,
The deep bass boom of mating toad,
The croak of frogs, mechanical,
The silence of the night erode.
The chirrup of a grashopper
With rasp of comb on parchment wing
And cicale's penetrating whirr
Of drums, their nightly nuptials sing.
The cricket from his earthen lair
With shrilling wings night serenades
In ceasing scream that rands the air
Till the last star in daylight fades.
A myriad individual songs
Combine to build a wall of sound,
Pierced where the nightjar's hollow gongs
With his harsh hammer strokes resound.
(*Apr. 1948*) 

Ration Sheet